Ireland, Nostalgia and Globalisation: Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa on Stage and Screen

Inlernulional Journul o! English Síudies Ireland, Nostalgia and Globalisation: Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa on Stage and Screen MIREIAARAGAY' University of'Barcelona In the context of an insightful cornparison between Brian Friel and Tom Murphy in his recent The Politics of'lrish Drama (1999), Nicholas Grene links Friel's much higher profile to the different ways in which the two playwrights negotiate the rural trope, and hence the representation of Ireland as 'modernity's other' within the context of an increasing globalisation. Grene, however, finds no room in The Politics of'lrish Drama for a discussion of Friel's most successful play to date, Dancing at Lughnasa (1990). This article aims to explore the disparity between the phenomenal success of the play, as opposed to the critica1 and commercial failure of the film version (1998; dir. Pat O'Connor; script by Frank McGuinness). In the light of Luke Gibbons's (1996) argument as regards the role ofnostalgia in late 20th-century Irish culture, and of Jean-Franqois Lyotard's (1982) claim that the 'postrnodern condition' is characterised by the absence of nostalgia, it is suggested that the divergent reception of the play and the film of Dancing at Lughnasa, both in Ireland and abroad, is a function of the different role played by rnemory and nostalgia in each. In addition, it possibly foregrounds a central paradox of postmodernity and globalisation, namely, the fact that a refusal of nostalgia is (inevitably) coupled with its 'other', i.e. a longing for origins, a desire for 'more authentic' modes of life. KEYWORDS: Brian Friel; Irish drama; adaptation; film; reception; nostalgia; modernity; globalisation; postmodern condition; pastoral trope. " Addressfor correspondence: Departarnent de Filologia Anglesa i Alemanya, Universitat de Barcelona, Gran Via, 585, 08007 Barcelona: Spain, tel.: 93-4035679: fax: 93-3 17 1249, e-mail: [email protected]. O Servicio de Publicaciones. Universidad de Murcia. A11 rights reserved. IJES, vol. 2 (2), 2002, pp. 83-93 1. In 1988, in his introduction to Across the Frontiers. Ireland in the 1990s, Richard Kearney described the current state of lreland in the following bleak terms: "One third of the population of the Republic live below the poverty line; fifty thousand young people ernigrate each year; over a quarter of a million are unernployed, with rates of up to 60 per cent in sorne of the new urban developrnents in Dublin; and inequality is growing rather than diminishing, with social welfare insufficient to rneet the minirnurn needs of a large proportion of the people. The continuing bloodshed of the North speaks for itself' (1988: 7). Such a dismal situation signalled the collapse of the social and economic measures of the 1960s and 70s, irnplemented in the wake of Sean Lemass's appointment as Taoiseach in 1959, replacing Earnon de Valera (Gibbons, 1996: 82-84). The protectionist, backward-looking policies which had resulted in the stagnation of Irish political, economic and cultural life since the 192 1 Partition Treaty were disrnissed as the Republic embarked decisively on the path to industrialisation, urbanisation and rnodemisation -welcoming foreign investrnent and rnultinational capital, joining the EEC in 1973, taking its place in the global cornrnunications village with the opening of Telefis Éireann in 1962, reforming the educational systern, and relaxing its rigid religious and moral regime in the wake of the Second Vatican Council(1962-65) (Brown, 1985: 241-3 11). While the positive irnpact of such transformations was not always evenly distributed, they were perceived by conternporaries as a rnajor turning point in the history of postcolonial Ireland, and it does seern legitirnate to clairn that, in general, conditions irnproved and self-confidente increased in Ireland over the 60s and 70s (Brown, 1985: 241; Cairns & Richards, 1988: 139). Such rnornenturn. however, was to flounder in the rnid- to late-1980s, leading to the disheartening state of affairs described by Kearney, in the face of which the essays in Across the Frontiers ask crucial questions about the future, with a particular focus on how the rnovernent towards European integration (1992) and globalisation rnay affect Ireland. In practica] terms, part of the answer to such questions came in the 1990s, when Ireland experienced an irnpressively swift econornic growih and integration into the international order which, despite sorne obvious black spots and contradictions, led econornist Kevin Gardiner to coin the label 'Celtic Tiger' in 1994 to describe the 'new' Ireland (González, 2000: 199). This wave-like process of econornic, social and political transforrnations has triggered an ongoing ideological debate -Brown (1985: 267-31 1) refers to the 60s and 70s as the 'Decades of Debate', a terrn which rnay clearly be extended to the present time- that revolves around inherited notions of national culture and identity. Prorninent among them is the pastoral trope, which lies at the heart of Ireland's cultural inheritance and national self-irnage. As David Cairns and Shaun Richards, arnong rnany other cornrnentators, have argued, "The economic rnalaise of 1950s Ireland ... was substantially a product of three decades of financial, economic, and social conservatisrn, in cornbination with cultural attitudes which. viewing the farmers as ernbodying the essence of the national ideal, sacrificed the material and cultural well-being of other groups to their interests" (1988: 139). Indeed, in post-1921 Ireland the peasants were O Servicio de Publicaciones. Universidad de Murcia. All rights reserved. IJES, vol. 2 (2), 2002, pp. 83-93 Irelund. ,Voslalgia and Globalisa~ion:Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa on S/a,qe and Screen 85 proclaimed by organic intellectuals such as Daniel Corkery -picking up on a discourse of 'real Irishness' that had already been mobilised during the Revival of the turn of the century (O'Toole, 1985)- to be the descendants of the Gaelic society of the 17th century and earlier, and were therefore enshrined as embodying the 'true' essence of Ireland. Their conservative social, economic and cultural values, grounded in familism and Catholicism, became the backbone of the new State. Eamon de Valera himself, in his 1943 St Patrick's Day broadcast to the nation, articulated this pastoral self-image in a statement which has been parodied on innumerable occasions in more recent times: "... a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with sounds of industry, the romping of sturdy children, the contests of athletic youths, the laughter of comely maidens; whose firesides would be the forums of the wisdom of serene old age" (qtd. in Cairns & Richards, 1988: 133). Such idyllic rhetoric obviously clashed with the harsh realities of rural life at the time which, among other things, lay behind the haemorrhage of emigration, amounting to 500,000 people between 1945 and 1961 (Cairns & Richards, 1988: 139). As both Fintan O'Toole (1 985) and Luke Gibbons (1996: 85-86) point out, the rural self-image was a metropolitan myth constructed by urban-based politicians, intellectuals and nostalgic emigrants at the turn of the century, a myth which would feed into the emergent culture of lrish nationalism and eventually into the post- 1921 Free State. Yet this pastoral myth of the land has proved to have a very powerful grip not only on the lrish national self-image, but also on what may be termed a global discursive construction of lreland as a pastoral site of origin. 11. As two recent significant publications remind us, Irish drama since the turn of the century has become a crucial cultural practice in Ireland, deeply implicated in the construction and negotiation of discourses on the nation (Grene, 1999; Murray, 1997). A repeated focus of interest for playwrights has been precisely that of the pastoral trope. lndeed, in the context of an insightful comparison between the early playwriting careers of Brian Friel and Tom Murphy in his The Politics oflrish Drumu (1 999: 194-2 1 S), Nicholas Grene claims that Friel's much higher profile is a consequence of the fact that his plays have tended to confirm for metropolitan audiences at home and abroad, in the 'global village', a discursive construction of Ireland as the place of the pre-modern other, while Murphy has resisted such an iconography, opting instead for a fiercely anti-pastoral mode. This has made Friel 'readable' to metropolitan audiences, both domestic and international, in ways Murphy is not.' Grene (1999: 3) also acknowledges that he ' Grene's book, The Polilics oflrish Drama(1999). signals a major turning point as regards the historiography of 20th-century lrish drama. While previous explorations of the politics of Irish drama, such as Christopher Murray's T~enlielh-CenluryIrish Drama: Mirror up lo a 1Vaialion(1997),have been concerned primarily with the politics of the nation's theatrical self-expression, Grene's basic tenet is that lrish plays that are self-consciously about the representation of lreland are directed outwards towards audiences both inside and outside Ireland. Grene'sapproach yields a series of lucid. fresh, immensely thought-provoking analyses of the work of a range of playwrights. O Servicio de Publicaciones. Universidad de Murcia. All rights reserved. IJES, vol. 2 (2): 2002, pp. 83-93 has found no room in The Politics oflrisli Dranrri for a disct!ssion of Friel's most successful play to date, Dancing at Lughnasa (1 990). This paper aims to explore the reasons for the disparity between the phenomenal success ofthe play Dancing at Lughnasa, as opposed to the critical and commercial faiiure of the film version (1998; dir. Pat O'Connor; script by Frank McGuimess) -inema being, of course, a fundamental signifying cultural practice of our time, one that operates within a global economy to a far greater extent than Dancing at Lughnrrsa may be described as a memory play which uses the favourite Frielian device of a framing narrative that turns the main action into a sustained flashback.

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